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Imprisoned lawyer in Iran goes on hunger strike

TEHRAN -- An Iranian human rights lawyer whose jailing spurred an international
outcry is now going on a hunger strike, frustrated by restrictions on her family,
her husband said Thursday.

Nasrin Sotoudeh, 49, was convicted last year of acting
against national security and spreading propaganda against the government. The attorney, known
for defending Iranian dissidents, had earlier angered the judiciary by denouncing
the unannounced execution of one of her clients, whom she was allowed to meet only briefly.

She was sentenced last year to 11 years in jail and banned
from practicing law for 20 years, to the outrage of fellow activists and global
human rights groups. At the time, the U.S. State Department decried the sentence as an
unjust and harsh attempt to silence defenders of democracy and human rights in
the country. Amnesty International calls her a “prisoner of conscience.”

Her sentence has
since been commuted to six years and she will be allowed to begin practicing
law again after a decade. But while Sotoudeh now faces fewer years behind bars,
other restrictions have been imposed on her and her family as she passes the
days in Evin Prison in Tehran.

This summer, husband Reza Khandan
and their daughter were forbidden from leaving the country. Sotoudeh has since been
barred from hugging him and her two children on prison visits, her husband says. Instead, the family must communicate by phone behind a clear barrier.

“The authorities
didn’t give us any reason why my wife cannot hug her son, who is suffering from
asthma,” said Khandan, a 48-year-old illustrator who is caring for their two
children, ages 12 and 6.

Khandan believes the
family is being punished after his wife passed written notes to him on tissues,
asking him to pass them along to her defense lawyer before her scheduled
retrial.

“Unfortunately, the
sheets of tissues were discovered, and since three months ago, we cannot
embrace her in our weekly meeting,” he said. The hearing to retry her case was
delayed “until further notice.”

Sotoudeh announced
Wednesday that she was beginning an indefinite hunger strike, drinking water and nothing else. Her husband worries she is already physically fragile and weak.

The famed attorney
was put into solitary confinement for “a lengthy period” and waged three
earlier hunger strikes in protest against her arrest and detention conditions,
Amnesty International reported this year. Her defense attorney has also
faced threats of arrests, the rights group said.

Sotoudeh had spoken out after being blindsided by
the execution of 20-year-old Arash Rahmanipour, convicted of “taking up arms
against God” for alleged involvement in an illegal monarchist group. The young man was executed at dawn without any notice to his attorney.

"We, as defense lawyers of human rights, are under so
much pressure and restrictions, and the noose around us is tightening and we
are insulted and threatened so much and verbally abused," Sotoudeh told The Times in an emotional interview more than two and a half years ago. “What
makes me feel helpless, desperate and bitter is that our attempt to help our
clients is doomed and in vain.”